Hard Times for Perry Means Hard Times for Perry Pundits

Back when Rick Perry first announced for president, the only people happier than his supporters may have been the Texas media. Campaign coverage is good for business, and in those heady days before Perry’s candidacy became official, you couldn’t turn on cable news without seeing one state capitol reporter or another (including, yes, our own staffers) sharing Texas expertise.

“Totally get the Perry jobs miracle,” Peter Applebome joked on Twitter August 16. “In just four days he’s created the Texas Pundit Full Employment Program.”

Three months later, the pundit shark has jumped.

Last week, Politico found Texas Tribune editor-in-chief and CEO Evan Smith joking that he’d have to kick campaign reporter Jay Root “back on criminal justice” if Perry isn’t in it for the long haul. And Sunday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ’s Aman Batheja revealed that an expected spate of Perry books may never come.

“I had a deal, and then Perry blew it,” former Star-Telegram reporter (and Burkablog contributor) R.G. Ratcliffe said in the story. “I have a written book, but at this point in time there’s not a whole lot of market for it.”

At least one tome will survive, though not the way its authors planned. When Democratic political consultant Jason Stanford and Bush’s Brain co-author Jim Moore first announced Adios Mofo: Why Rick Perry Will Make America Miss George W. Bush, Stanford told Politico, “There’s already been more media interest in ‘Adios Mofo’ than there was about ‘Bush’s Brain’ before it came out.”

Now, Batheja reports, the book’s scheduled publication is dead. Instead, Stanford and Moore are rush-releasing it as an e-book this week, ideally with a paperback to follow.

“Our publisher couldn’t get “Adios, Mofo” out till January 17,” Stanford wrote on his blog Behind Frenemy Lines . “No guarantee Perry will still be around then, so we made the choice to put it out ourselves.”